I’ve been knocking around my old student haunt of Grahamstown this weekend on the outskirts of the Highway Africa conference as well as doing a bit of schmoozing. I had a chance to have a brief chat to New York Times investigative reporter Ron Nixon, who is also one of the brains behind a really interesting new website launched to help investigative reporting in Africa. The site’s called the Ujima Project and is well worth a look.

The Ujima Project puts Africa under the magnifying glass

So what’s it about?

Well, the founders of the site are trying to help us hacks here in Africa to access information which our governments generally don’t like us to get access too. The problems for our governments, however, is that there is an enormous amount of important information available in the US about other governments’ activities and the activities of foreign companies doing business or lobbying in the United States.

It is this information that Ron and his colleagues have put together in a wonderfully easily searchable form for journalists to access. The Ujima Project is a joint venture between the nonprofit Great Lakes Media Institute and Investigative Reporters and Editors
I’m hoping to do a full interview with Ron about the site and the background behind it but while I get around to that let me show you some of the gems available on the Ujima.

Check out this record, for example, produced on a search for weapons sales from the US to South Africa.

Now, how intriguing. What on earth would South Africa be doing making such a purchase in 2007 and what specifically are these toxicological agents that it might be purchasing and for what purpose? And reporters out there want to pick up on this one?

Or this one – probably satellite parts of something, but intriguing nevertheless.

You can also dig around and find other fascinating information. Every foreign company involved in any lobbying or other activities in the US has to register with the US Justice Department and disclose their activities and the money involved. This apparently goes back to the Second World War when a Nazi Party front company was getting up to some nefarious activities in the US. The result, more than 50 years, later is that there is a ton of information available about SA companies activities in the States. Go and have a look.

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